About Us

Who we are:

Pleased to make your acquaintance! We are Mike Costanzo and LeeAnne Sanders, a husband-and-wife farming team behind Lake Hollow Homestead.

What we do:

We run a small garlic farm in northern Colorado that specializes in gourmet culinary garlic, seed garlic for hobby gardeners, and garlic-related cottage foods such as garlic salts, powder, and infused vinegars.

We also “homestead,” an old term repurposed to mean living more simply and self-sufficiently. We choose to live with less. We try to grow the majority of our own food, processing and storing it even through the winter. We buy what we can’t grow from other local farmers whenever possible. We strive to live as softly on the land as healthily for our bodies as we can.

How we got here:

Longtime hobby gardeners, we both spent years growing vegetables in backyard gardens, always dreaming of one day having a little more space where we could grow enough not just for ourselves but others as well. In 2014, that dream became a reality when we purchased a small-acreage property just outside the small town of Berthoud, Colorado and immediately started turning over garden beds.

We officially opened Lake Hollow Homestead in 2015 and ran a mixed vegetable farm and CSA, bringing a wide variety of of fresh produce to the Berthoud Farmers market and our CSA pick-up sites each week. However, just a year and a half into the project, Mike was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease that attacks the brain and often results in muscle and mobility issues. We faced a whole new set of challenges to a lifestyle that requires a lot of physical labor.

After four years of vegetables and much thought, planning and discussion, we found our niche in garlic. By growing primarily one crop, we are better able to plan for and manage the busy bursts of labor, grow a high-quality product, and, most importantly, continue to live our dream of farming despite some of the unexpected turns life had taken.

We’re an unlikely story: two suburban-raised, average Joes trying to run a garlic farm and live off the land while also battling chronic disease.